


Counting the Yellow Cars On the New Jersey Turnpike

by Iwantthatcoat



Series: So You Thought That "Forgive Me, Benedict" Was Offensive? [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bon Jovi lyrics, Bruce Springsteen lyrics, Chris Christie - Freeform, Crack, Fleeting Cabin Pressure references, Frank Sinatra Lyrics, Gen, It's about time we recognised Irene Adler for the Jersey Girl she is, New Jersey, Not that the lyrics are a warning, Paul Simon lyrics, References to scandal in bohemia, Snapper-related innuendo, Sneaky angst, Songfic, Thats why the dialogue might seem odd at first, grusome off screen death of a deserving cephlopod, mention without description of unusual sexual acts, yes i am from ny so I am allowed to tag for new jersey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8301700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwantthatcoat/pseuds/Iwantthatcoat
Summary: Irene returns to her New Jersey roots and Sherlock is on a quest for an oatmeal sweater...I mean jumper. Jumper. A continuation of the $18.95 Verse.





	

 

  
_So you left London. It wasn’t safe_ , he texted.

_I prefer not to text_ , came the reply.

The phone rang. He hit the button and Irene immediately began to speak. “That town ripped the bones from my back. It was a deathtrap. And then one night, I woke up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head and I knew there was no place left to hide. I had to run till I dropped. I could never go back. I just needed to head where no one asked any questions or looked too long in my face." She straightened her posture and cleared her throat.  1 "Well… I was born in the USA, so, it wasn’t long before I was back on the streets of Philadelphia… unrecognizable to even myself.” Silence. She had disconnected.

Sherlock texted again, in keeping with his regular preference.2

_Are you still… in business?_

The phone rang again. “It’s all the same. Only my name has changed. I used to work on the docks, but the dominatrix union's been on strike. It's tough." Click. This was going to be an odd mode of conversation.3

_I’m…sorry. I admit, I didn’t think of your plight much at all. After I saved you in Karachi, I felt we were more than even._

Ring. "Yes, I know you thought you could save me, but no one could have saved me…the damage was done. I should have seen it in your eyes-- what was going around your head. Well, that’s what you get for falling in love.” She sighed. “I had lots of money, but it wasn’t what I needed… and I wasn’t looking for forgiveness. But, then, I realised…it’s my life. It’s now or never. I just want to live. Until I die, anyway. Even if it means I go down in some sort of blaze of glory.”

_And you ended up sharing a closet in Hoboken._

“I planned each charted course, each careful step. And for a long time, it felt like I was traveling each and every highway. At first, I thought Chicago was my kind of town, but eventually I made a brand new start of it in New York. I did what I had to do. And saw it through without exemption. I... ate it up and spit it out." 4

_Rumor was you'd died._

"Well now... everything dies, baby. That's a fact. But, maybe, everything that dies someday comes back."

_I need your help. Your connections. I need to find a very specific jumper._

He ate a piece of toast with some jam on it. He wasn't thinking about John. There was just still a ton of the stuff left in the flat, and it'd be a long transatlantic flight and he didn't much care for the pretzels and ginger ale they would be serving along with some glorified version of microwavable slop. Plus, someone could always try to replace the pretzel salt with broken glass.

"Well, Let me just put my makeup on, fix my hair up pretty, and you can meet me tomorrow in Atlantic City." She smiled. And you could hear it. Even though she was actually still on the phone.5

***  
After the far too blonde, gum-chewing waitress sat them next to a large, rotating dessert case, she asked them what they wanted. "Taylor ham sandwich. Large coffee, regular." The waitress looked at Sherlock, expectantly. "Oh, and nothing for him." She glared and left.

"I thought you misspelled dinner. You actually _did_ mean 'will talk more at diner'."

"Yes. They make a good sandwich. Snapper soup, too. Want to try some snapper?" She winked.

"No. And by the way," he glanced at the waitress and then at the other restaurant patrons, "you don't have nearly enough product in your hair."

"To be gay, or to be a Jersey Girl?"

"Both? Though I admit women are not my area. The spray tan helps make up for it, though."

"It seemed out of place in London. You are the palest group of people on the planet." She exaggerated her accent, "Wanna go down da shore? You could use some vitamin D."

"That, actually, is precisely where I need to go."

She got into her car and navigated through several traffic circles before getting onto the Turnpike. "You might be in danger here as well...he is a spy," Sherlock said, pointing to a man in a gabardine suit and a bow tie standing near the on ramp.

"Yes, his bow tie is really a camera. But he's just a run-of-the-mill pervert, not a spy. Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat."6

He checked the pockets and stared at her. "You clearly smoked the last one an hour ago." Upset at the lack of cigarettes, he glared out the window at the scenery and counted the cars. Irene took a jughandle, pulled into a station and bought a pack and some Mrs Wagner's pies while the attendant pumped gas.

She threw the items into Sherlock's lap, and he grabbed the cigarettes. "A jumper, you say?"

"Traced it down to a shop off Carnaby Street." He removed one from the pack. Her lighter had been replaced by a phone charger. He frowned. "I told the shopkeeper I was certain all his jumpers were made of country wool, not city wool. He scoffed and said _all_ wool is country wool. Clearly, he is ignorant of the urban wool movement. In any case, I told him the tensile strength of the fibers indicated they were Icelandic, or possibly Peruvian, jumpers. He said I was a nutter and it was clearly regular English wool. I had him now! I told him I had a Kentucky Klondike Bar riding on it not being manufactured in the UK. He looked me up and down, then smirked, and pulled out his invoice book." 7

"The invoice showed the jumper was manufactured in Pitlochry, Scotland. After arriving there, I whipped out one of Grover Lestrade's 'borrowed' badges and quickly learned there had been recent shipments to Carnaby Street...as well as Whistler, Vail and one erroneously sent off to a tourist shop in Atlantic City. There was a printed email conversation between the store's owner and the supplier tucked into the ledger in which the former asked the latter why a summer destination would ever order a "sweater", as he called it, and that he'd better not have been billed for it. Turned out he wasn't charged for the shipment, and the manufacturer said he should just keep the jumper, as it wasn't worth the effort of shipping it back and perhaps it might just sell if there should be an unseasonably cold day. To which the shop owner said something about it being a cold day in fucking hell before it'd sell and that he'd keep it in its original box in the back room. I had called just in time, you see, as someone else rang him up and asked similar questions about a sweater. The owner politely explained they didn't sell to the general public. A few moments later, the phone rang again, and this time he was angrier."

Sherlock affected an invading bit of brogue. "'We don't sell to Joe Public', he said, and on the third call it was 'Ah've telt ye already we dinnae sell tae the public, we only dae wholesale so get tae fuck!' and he slammed the phone down."

Irene was impressed with his vocal talent, but did her best not to show it. "And why do you need this particular one?" she asked.

"Oh. No reason."

"Right. Look, Sherlock, no one likes you in this Universe. Well, no one likes you in other ones either, but in this one you are especially unpopular-- so I suggest you actually try being nice to me. Plus you know absolutely nothing about New Jersey." She took another exit, swinging the car around a bit more abruptly than required for the turn.

"I know that every baseball used in a major or minor league game within the United States is treated with mud from New Jersey."

She stopped cold. "How on Earth?"

"I know quite a bit about mud."

"Apparently."

"Before a game, new baseballs are dirtied with Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud. Some claim it is to soften the leather. Others say the pitchers' fingers would blister, or that batters would be blinded by the glare of white leather in the summer sun. Ridiculous. Tradition edging its way into superstition-- nothing more. Burns Bintliff of Largo, Florida prepares it using mud from the same secret source in New Jersey since 1938-- which is actually Camden, along the banks of Pennsauken Creek."

"Camden. How can you tell what town is--"

"It is made up of 90 percent finely-ground quartz pulverized during the Pleistocene Epoch. As I said-- I know mud. And towns named Camden. And especially mud in towns named Camden."

Irene nodded. Not to be outdone, she added "It also makes an excellent mosquito repellant. Tom Brown Jr. wrote about covering his whole body in it. Visitors to the Barren Pines thought he was the Jersey Devil. That's a creature that--"

"I am well aware of what the Jersey Devil is. I had studied all types of cryptids when I was on the Baskerville case." He looked wistful.

"Honestly, Sherlock, I am not nearly as stupid as you think I am. The sweater reminds you of John, doesn't it?"

"John who?"

"I'm sorry he was evil."

Sherlock teared up a bit and promptly blamed the chef, who was slicing onions for an Italian Hotdog nowhere near the service portion of the diner.

"I'll help you locate the store. I will even help you break into it, since businesses here are closed during the winter. We will find the sweater."

"Jumper."

"Fine. Jumper."

****

Sherlock walked past three stores without so much as a second glance. Then something caught his eye and he pulled Irene to the side quickly.

"What is different about that store? I don't see any--"

"Nothing. There is nothing about the store itself. It's what's inside it."

"And that would be?"

"A short, blond man in a meticulously-tailored Belstaff coat."8

John was in the store, making a beeline to the back room. Oh. That had been John on the phone. Looking for the jumper. So, it was to be a race. He had the advantage. John didn't know he had seen him. He could just call the police and report a break-in on the Boardwalk, couldn't he? He saw John throw a box to the ground in frustration and then pivot backwards out the fire escape. Irene smirked at the lack of artistry. As he landed on the railing with a thud, she hadn't thought it possible to silence her laughter.

John rubbed his sore shoulder and frowned. He shouted down at the two of them. "Hey Team Hopeless?! You know what the difference is between Manchester United and a Jersey Girl?" Sherlock and Irene stared at each other blankly. "Man U is tight at the back! See you round! Oh, and the Statue of Liberty isn't yours!"

"Go to hell, Shoobie!"

"And you can go suck Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey's dick!"

Sherlock merely stared in shock and disbelief. He wanted to go home. But not without his jumper. John wasn't carrying anything, so he hadn't found it yet.

"John?!"

John turned as he was climbing down the ladder to face Sherlock. He said nothing.

"You already have a jumper! Why steal another?"

"I've learned my lesson about discontinued menswear, Sherlock Holmes. This one's getting a bit worn." He pulled his oatmeal jumper an inch or so away from his body, and the fabric refused to fall back into place, leaving a tented gap. "It already smells like gun oil, Earl Grey tea, and... something uniquely me. When I can't wear it anymore, I'll need another one."

Sherlock hadn't, in fact, found another Belstaff for his own wardrobe. He looked down at himself--wearing nothing but a thin Dolce and Gabbana main-line dress shirt, 100% imported cotton, slim fit, in plum-- and frowned. He had been fortunate enough to find another on Ebay; the seller had labeled as "red". Idiot. But at least he had a replacement. The coat was impossible, and wearing an inferior copy just made everything that much worse.

Irene noticed his despair, and his lack of coat, and finally connected the dots. "I saw a picture once of my math teacher wearing a coat that looked just like yours. Maybe we can... find a new home for it?"

Sherlock frowned. He really didn't want to simply take someone else's coat. His had meant something to him. Memories of... well. No use dwelling on that.

"It never snows in London. I don't need a coat like that anyway."

"But you need a jumper."

"For your information, I have no intention of wearing it."

Irene stared at him. "So what are you going to use it for? Sad wanking?"

Sherlock stared back, completely silent.

"I was only kidding."

"I don't partake in...sad wanking. For your information, I thought it would--" he cut himself short. Why was he explaining this to her, anyway? It was private. The fact that he wanted to wrap it around his teapot to keep things so very nice and warm was straighforward. Why he wanted it to match John's jumper wasn't. He wasn't entirely sure himself. But now that he knew John wanted it, he felt compelled to get it first. "Well, I have an experiment and it.... Could we talk about something else, perhaps? Some shared interest? Beating people with riding crops! We both like that."

"Look, we don't have to discuss anything. And I'm only too happy to stop one of those goddamn Bennys from getting something they want. I pretty much don't care what you do with it. Though I might find it interesting."

"Experiment."

She scrutinized him carefully. It seemed... true? She scrunched her face and smiled.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "It's to do with tea."

"So, it isn't this store. Which next?"

"I have nothing to go on except that it is a store in Atlantic City, on the Boardwalk, that only does business in the fall."

"Hmmm. Do you remember the screen name?"

Sherlock closed his eyes, searching his mindpalace, while Irene liberated her cigarettes from his back pocket.

"Something about the Jersey Devil...which seemed odd, as a fan of mythical creatures is highly unlikely to own something as pedestrian as a Boardwalk shop."

"The Jersey...you must mean the Jersey Devils! Hockey team, Sherlock. Look for a hockey-themed shop. I can't believe you know baseball mud, but not--"

"Puck You."

"Pardon?"

"There." Sherlock pointed to a shop.

The windows were barred, but there was a simple padlock on the back door. Sherlock's smile was entirely too big for his face. Irene offered a hairpin, but Sherlock said he always carried one of his own should just such an occasion arise and reached into his curls to retrieve it. The lock was open in seconds.

The door swung open into a huge backroom. Sherlock didn't move, he simply visually scanned the place before zeroing in from section to section in a way that made her want to do "Six Million Dollar Man" ch-ch-ch-ch sounds. Irene set herself up on the opposite side of the room and did much the same thing.

"There!"

"Under the Chris Christie dartboards!"

They both clambered over piles of boxes toward a dirty, crushed one in the far corner. Each looked briefly at the other, wondering if they had spotted the same clues giving away the contents of the box, before smiling and acknowledging each other's skills without a word passing between them. To her surprise, Sherlock began slowly peeling back packing tape with his fingernail from a box when they both heard someone loudly clearing their throat.

"I'll take that. If you don't mind."

Sherlock slumped his shoulders, and placed the yet unopened carton carefully on the floor.

"Thank you for finding it for me. I didn't have all day to search through boxes. Might miss my show at Prudential. Plus I still have to grab another carton of fish for Seb," John looked directly at Sherlock. "He sends his love, by the way."

"Oh, that's nice. And here I was thinking he'd forgotten all about me when he never called. Do tell him I have a special present, just for him. Kimi Werner said she would deliver it in person. Oh, is it Tuesday already?" He checked his watch. "Oh, and midday, too. I rather think he has received it by now."

John blanched.

"Well, I'll...just be taking this then. Yoink!" John grabbed the box and hurried out the door.

Irene looked puzzled. "I always thought you and he had a thing?"

"Oh, he had a thing alright. Emphasis on had. And, I suppose, on _thing_ , too."

"Why keep the sw...jumper? I mean why not take John's, instead of a different one that still looks like John's? Why not... Well...just...why?"

Sherlock opened the box just to the left of the one he had lifted previously. He took out his handy dandy hairpin and opened the seal at lightning speed, removing an oatmeal-coloured heap of knitted fabric. "I don't like gun oil contaminating my tea." He looked up at her, his features surprisingly calm. "And if anyone would know something about keeping odd souveniers from past relationships that don't make sense to anyone else, it would be Irene Adler."

"That is my ACD Canon version. We have our differences. As for the tea, might I join you sometime?"

"I drink alone. With nobody else. You know when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself."

"That's Delaware, you know."

"Close enough."

\--------------------------

  
1 But this is a phone call, and it's from Sherlock's POV, so how can anyone know that she did that? Though you really did need the break in the line, because the dialogue is too much of a big chunk of text right here and this whole section lacks physical action, so...good call there. How many times do I have to remind you you aren't writing a damn radio play, Coat.

 

2 Is this innuendo?  
No  
OK Because It almost sounds like innuendo.  
It isn't innuendo. Do you think people will think it's innuendo?  
Possibly.  
I'll address it at the end.

3Was that Bon Jovi?  
Yes.

4But this is innuendo, right? Yes. But it's technically Sinatra's innuendo.

5 Coat. This does not fix the problem. You can't hear her smiling. Delete it.

6 I thought Paul Simon was from Brooklyn.  
He was born in New Jersey.  
Really?  
Yeah, but it is the Turnpike I'm after though.

7 Get this Brit-picked. I doubt he'd call it a Kentucky Klondike Bar. And BTW, WTF is a...oh.

8 Blond man is redundant.  
It doesn't sound redundant.  
Well, it is redundant. You are either blonde or blond. And good on you for not writing blonde man, but...blond man is, in fact, redundant.  
I'm keeping it.  
Fine. But it's wrong.  
So's your momma.  
Seriously? Way to channel 1980. matches your musical taste.You do realise no one is gonna notice the song dialogue, right?

Coat?

**Author's Note:**

> Kimi Werner does a very specific thing to cephlopods which is on YouTube, though I have not watched it. Let's just say Tentacle Monster Moran is very much quite dead.


End file.
